Sun Hurls 18 Solar Flares and Billions of Particles into Space

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Sun Hurls 18 Solar Flares and Billions of Particles into Space

First Posted: Oct 29, 2013 08:54 AM EDT

The sun's activity is ramping up some more as it approaches the peak of its 11-year solar cycle. Now, NASA has announced that our sun has released the first significant solar flares since June 2013 earlier this week. An X1.0-class flare exploded off the right side of the sun, peaking at 10:03 p.m. EDT on Oct. 27, 2013. This image was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory in the 131 Angstrom wavelength. (Photo : NASA/SDO)

The sun's activity is ramping up some more as it approaches the peak of its 11-year solar cycle. Now, NASA has announced that our sun has released the first significant solar flares since June 2013 earlier this week.
Solar flares are actually powerful bursts of radiation. These radiation bursts, though, cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to harm humans. They can cause other problems, though; when intense enough, they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. This can cause radio communication blackouts for hours at a time.
In this case, the sun released several solar flares. One of the larger flares was classified as a X1.0 flare, which peaked on Oct. 27. X-class flares are the most intense and the number associated with the flare denotes exactly how strong it is. For example, an X2 flare is twice as intense as an X1 flare. An X3 flare is three times as intense.

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